"Divider" is Clovis Didier

Nellis Auction, from Las Vegeas, USA, sells on 28 August 2016 in a house sale an "oil painting signed Divider dated 1899", no estimate, current bid $30. (no good picture or dimensions)

It is actually a work by Clovis-François-Auguste Didier (born 1858), a French painter of landscapes and genre scenes (usually with woman). His paintings fetch wildly varying prices, from a £500 landscape at Christie's in 2009 to a $30,000 scene at Sotheby's.

Dorotheum valued this lot at $8,000.

This lot was valued $6,000 by Sotheby's in 2008.

It is hard to tell from the picture, but this work seems to be less refined than his best works. It is perhaps closer to the above work, sold at Tajan in Paris in 2015 and estimated at 800 Euro. A price of about 1,000 Euro seems right for this one, so far it is a bargain. But without better pictures, it remains a gamble of course.

Reading this blog can save you a lot of money ;-)

Vanderkindere, from Brussels, sells on 13 September 2016 a"Probably Dutch school (?) 17th century" Denial of Saint Peter, estimated at 1,000 to 1,500 Euro.

It is the (over-)cleaned version of a painting sold at Rops (also in Belgium) in May, which was then estimated at 2,000 to 3,000 Euro and sold for 2,000 Euro, against my advice that "I certainly don't believe it is worth as much". In that blog post, I had identified it as a "reversed copy after one of the masterpieces of Gerard Seghers, "The Denial of Saint Peter"". They now have the right subject but omit the origin of the image. I'm not convinced it's a 17th century copy either.

The current estimation may be right (or still too high), but after paying 2,000 Euro plus auction costs plus the costs of cleaning the painting, it must hurt to only get back a probable 1,000 Euro minus the auction costs.

UPDATE: sold for 1,400 Euro, seems still too high to me.

Hugo Weischet

Vanderkindere, from Brussels, sells on 13 September 2016 a "Hungarian School, Budapest (19)20, signed Weischer(?)" Women at the Well, a rather large (155 by 115cm) canvas estimated at 1,000 to 1,5000 Euro.

This is most likely a work by Hugo Weischet (1897-1976), a German painter who lived and worked in Budapest (and Hungary in general) from at least 1924 to 1930. I see the "2" after Budapest, but I don't recognise a "0" or any other number after it (if anything, I see a 4). The name reads "Weische" plus prebably one further letter, which could very well be a lower case "t".

The work is somewhat more classical than the few others by him I could find, but it still shows enough elements of his work to be an acceptable attribution. The two works I could find prices for were sold for 450 and 700 Euro, so below the estimate here, but both were considerable smaller works in tempera on cardboard or paper, not oils on canvas like here. (Images and info through Artvalue) Both feature a woman with a naked back, similar to the one seen here on the upper right, and they show that he didn't stick to a single style for his works.

I would estimate this one at 2,000 to 3,000 Euro.

UPDATE: sold for 900 Euro, even below the lowest estimate...

Good quality copy after Stradanus, with variations

Vanderkindere, from Belgium, sells on 13 September 2016 a "Flemish School, 17th century" Christ chasing the money lenders from the Temple, estimated at 1,000 to 1,500 Euro.

It is a copy after Jan van der Straet (or Stradanus), a 1572 painting from the Holy Spirt Church in Florence. The original is 370cm by 260cm according to the RKD, though other sources give 292 by 217cm , this copy is a much smaller but still respectable 107cm by 76cm. The completely different colours seem to suggest that it is based on an engraving after the work. This is probably the 1575 engraving by Philips Galle mentioned at the RKD but which I haven't found online.

The painting also has some differences compared to the original, so perhaps there is more to this than just a copied engraving. It looks to be painter a lot better in the bottom half than at the top (everything from the head of Christ and upwards is less refined).

The above is the man on the left, from the work for sale and from the original. While the basic position is the same, very little has been retained otherwise, and the copy is surprisingly well painted (the original is better than this picture may suggest, I have zoomed in from the best but still small picture I could find for it).

Other sections show similar variations. The composition has been rearranged here, bringing the hand of Christ next to the head of the suprised man instead of high above it. The heads are in a much more typical "Flemish", caricatural style, compared to the original "Italian" style, but they are very well painted.

Perhaps this is work is not so much based on an angraving a on a detailed drawing made by a 17th century Flemish painter during his Grand Tour, and then reworked into a painting back home in Flanders. The changes above are evidence of a well-talented artist, not some mere copiist like we see usually.

As mentioned above, the upper part of the work is of lesser quality, e.g. the head of Christ (the focal point of the work) is clearly inferior to the heads I highlighted already. Either the artist was better in capturing the more caricatural money lenders than the at once solemn, divine and angered Christ: or this part has been "restored" over the centuries and at best something much better is hidden beneath the current top layer.

As an anonymous work, I would rate it at 3,000 to 5,000 Euro. If anyone coiuld put a name to the artist, this might increase even further.

UPDATE: a reader kindly sent me a link to the Galle engraving. It turns out to be some intermediate version between the Stradanus painting and the work for sale here (e.g. the man with the turban on the right, or the girl in the upper right, can be seen in the engraving and the work for sale, but not in the original; but the man with his legs pulled up, on the lower right, is in the engraving and the original, but not in the work for sale). Perhaps Stradanus had painted more than one version of the work? This engraving doesn't really answer all questions about this work, but it makes it to me even more intriguing and worthwhile. Getting this for anything like the estimate would be a good bargain.

UPDATE:sold for 3,600 Euro,  tripled the original estimate and perfectly inside my estimate, nice!

20,000 pageviews!

Thnak you, dear readers. Even when I hardly post anything during summer, people keep on reading my old posts. While I never had a day with more than 200 pageviews until this month, I now have had already four consecutive days with more than 200 pageviews, including one with more than 400 pageviews, which has boosted the total number of views over the 20K mark.

I'll pick up the pace again over the next few weeks, and hope to find lots of interesting paintings to share with you, from the worst fakes to the hidden gems.

When an El Lissitzky is an upside-down Malevich

Jordaens, from Belgium, sells on 24 August 2016 a "Mixed technique composotion, monogrammed E. L." without an estimate.

"Mixed technique" or "Mixed media" is a curse, it gives the impression of being an original (painted) but is in reality a print. Auction houses would be nicer if they made these things a bit clearer.

"E.L." is clearly El Lissitzky, one of the most important of the Russian suprematicists.second only to Malevich. This work is unusually colourful and detailed for him. The reason may be that it isn't a work by El Lissitzky, but a work by Malevich turned upside down (with a few colours changed) and given a fake monogram.

Usually the fakers are either a bit more laborious, really creating a new work using some poorly understood and copied elements of the originals, or they are even more lazy, simply taking a print of a real work and adding a fake signature (and normally a "EA" épreuve d'artiste marking, which should be rarer than a number but is harder to check for unicity). This one is a first for me.

Value is what you would give for a Malevich poster in a frame (the frame looks a lot older than the image which is brand new).

UPDATE: Jordaens have now changed the description to include the information that it is based on a Malevich reproduction. Great!

UPDATE 2: images of the monogram on the work for sale, and some original El Lissitzky monograms, to make it obvious that it was intended to look like a work by him (no matter how poorly done  to anyone studying his work for even a short while). This was an attempted El Lissitzky fake, no more, no less.

Teniers miniature

Ginhart, from Germany, sells on 12 August 2016 a "Fine Miniatur", 6,5 by 8 cm, painted on ivory and estimated at 200 Euro.

It is rather unusual miniature as it is a fairy good copy after Teniers (I presume, I haven't found this specific work but he has many very similar ones). I certainly would rather have this than many "real" larger size Teniers copies on canvas, even though it is closer to kitsch than to art.

19th c. Holy Family is copy after Palma Vecchio

Mehlis, from Germany, sells on 25 August 2016 a "Holy Family with Joseph and Elisabeth", a 19th century anonymous painting estimated at 180 Euro.

It is a reasonably well executed copy after Palma Vecchio's "Sacra Conversazione" from the Venice Accademia. For its size and quality, it is rather cheap as well. As usual with these, it's a bit strange that the auction house didn't realise the origin of this work.